If Rachel Hetherington keeps this up, she won't be known as the other Australian much longer.

Fresh off two straight victories, Hetherington showed no sign of letting up today in the Titleholders Championship with a 5-under 67 that left her in a familiar spot -- atop the leaderboard, tied with Patti Rizzo and Tina Barrett after the first round.

Karrie Webb, a three-time winner this year who hasn't finished worse than eighth, had a 69 and is well within range of her former teammate from their junior days in Australia.

Hetherington is after a bigger prize.

A victory this week would make her the first woman to win three straight tournaments since JoAnne Carner in 1982. The record is five, by Nancy Lopez in 1978.

"I don't feel any pressure to win the third one, but it would be pretty special to do it," Hetherington said.

This would be the toughest of all, particularly since the Mercury Titleholders is a 72-hole event over a course that tends to yield birdies no matter what the conditions. Hetherington won in Atlanta over 54 holes, and last week at Myrtle Beach in a 36-hole event cut short by rain.

And the leader board is jammed pack with some dangerous names.

Annika Sorenstam, who usually starts warming up this time of the year, was one stroke back in a large group at 68 that included Helen Alfredsson and Canadian Lorie Kane. Webb and Donna Andrews were among those at 69.

Then again, Hetherington seems to be playing on another level.

"She must feel great," Sorenstam said. "When you play like this, it seems to get easier. You don't see bunkers or water, you see only fairways and greens. And once you get on the green, the hole looks really big."

It must have looked like a manhole cover to Hetherington. She knocked in a 40-foot birdie putt on the first hole and never slowed down. The shortest putt she had was a 12-footer for eagle on No. 5, and she closed out her 67 with another 40-foot bomb on the par-5 ninth.

"The hole is the same size, I'm just putting better," Hetherington said. "Every time I look at a putt, I have a good feel for the line."

Barrett, trying to win for the first time in 10 years, had a much more conventional 67. The combined length of her six birdies putts were about the size of one of Hetherington's big putts. Her longest was 20 feet on the par-3 17th.

"Their are certain courses on tour where you know you're going to score low, and this is one of them," Barrett said.

Because of a recent dry spell, the rough is half as high as normal. And the greens run so true that players are rarely confronted with a deceptive putting line.

Still, that doesn't explain what Rizzo is doing among the leaders.

The rookie of the year in 1982, Rizzo was on the verge of retirement just three days ago because of self-doubt -- not whether she could stripe a 5-iron off a tight lie, but whether she could balance golf and motherhood.

A perfect example came two weeks ago. Her 2-year-old son was thought to have chicken pox. Her 4-year-old daughter was wheezing and may have had asthma. Rizzo was on the driving range in Atlanta straining to hear the news through a cell phone, then had to go play against a new breed of stars who are 15 years younger.

Both diagnoses were wrong, but that didn't help Rizzo make the cut that week or the next. Driving down from South Carolina, she got to Daytona Beach and kept right on going.

"I was really contemplating ending my career," she said. "I was so discouraged. I was thinking that God didn't want me out here. I was thinking that maybe he wanted me to be a mom."

But she returned Wednesday night, walked onto the first tee and pieced together a 67.

"I'd rather be telling you this story on Sunday," she said.

The way Hetherington is going, Rizzo might not get that chance.

DIVOTS: Pat Bradley, U.S. captain for the 2000 Solheim Cup, has selected Debbie Massey as her assistant. Massey played on the Curtis Cup in 1974 and was the LPGA rookie of the year in 1977. ... Only on the LPGA Tour can a player be disqualified before the tournament even starts. The victim was Jean Bartholomew, who violated the tour's zero-tolerance policy of being AWOL for her pro-am tee time. ... Amy Read and Rhonda Reilly each recorded their first ace on tour. Read hit a 4-iron from 161 yards on the 14th, while Reilly hit a 6-iron from 142 yards on No. 6. ... Jan Stephenson had two eagles in a round of 70.